Our challenges are monthly, based on an inspirational photo and a colour swatch. A new challenge is launched on the third Wednesday of every month and you can use any medium to create your projects; inks, pencils, pens, etc., as long as you keep to the colours from the colour swatch in your project. We offer a monthly prize of £15 and the winner is drawn by Random.org from those entries that have used Chocolate Baroque stamps currently available on the website. We welcome entries from anyone however, and all entries will be considered by the DT members for a slot in the Top Three each month.

This week, we have more inspiration from the DT. Our first project is a beautiful swirly cat card from Asha:

Stamp the four pieces of Stampbord each with a different part of the large stamp from the stamp set, using Archival jet black ink and emboss with clear embossing powder.

Colour the images using Brushos, mixing the powders in a palette using a water brush.

Stick the patterned paper across the back of the Stampbord, overlapping the join slightly.

Run a line of glue around the edge of the mountboard and slide it into the bottom of the pencil pot. Allow the glue to set.

Run a line of glue along each outside corner and lay the seed beads on the glue, pulling the thread out slowly, to keep the seed beads nice and straight.

(Optional) Apply a thin layer of matte medium over the Stampbord to protect the surface, being careful not to over work the medium, or it will cause the colours to run.

I hope that you will give this project a try as it is such fun to make.

Thank you to Asha and Miranda for your inspiration this week. We will be back next week with another post and more projects for you. We look forward to seeing more of your entries, and hope that you can find time now that Christmas is over to join in with our challenge.

You can add your entries to the Inlinkz link here. In the meantime, don't forget if you have any questions, and you cannot find the answers on the blog pages, please send us a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this blog post; you will see it after the comments section.

Wednesday, 24 December 2014

Hello everyone, welcome to another week on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. First of all we would like to wish all of you a very Happy Christmas, and hope that you all have a lovely time over the festive period.

This week, we are announcing the winner of Challenge Five. The winner of our £15 prize to spend at Chocolate Baroque is Felicie, whose lovely layered marine card was drawn by Random.org as the overall winner. Congratulations Felicie, we hope that you will have fun spending your voucher.

You can also display our Winner's Badge, details of how to obtain the badge can be found on the FAQ tab at the top of the page. Please email Lesley on lesley@chocolatebaroque.com so that she can organise your voucher.

Our Top Three have been chosen by the Design Team. We had a tough time choosing our winners, as the entries were amazing. Our Top Three, in no particular order are:

Congratulations girls, you can display the Top Three badge on your blog. Details of how to obtain the badge may be found on the FAQ tab at the top of the page. Well done to everyone who entered, and we hope that you will enter our current challenge. You can find the details here.

We have some more Design Team inspiration for you this week. Our first projects are from Florence, a couple of vibrant tags, to get your imagination flowing:

Our second project is from Doreen, a beautiful fairy card, mixing some great stamp sets together:

Thank you girls for your inspiration, hopefully they will inspire you to create something for the challenge.

We will be back next week with more projects from the Design Team, but until then, we look forward to seeing more of your entries. If you have any questions and you cannot find the answers on the blog, please send us a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this blog post; you will see it after the comments section.

Wednesday, 17 December 2014

Hello everyone and welcome to a new challenge on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. A big welcome to our new followers this month and a thank you to our loyal regulars as well. We really appreciate all of the support that you give us, and appreciate all of your comments and the fabulous entries that you submit to our challenges.

We will be announcing the winner next week, both here and on our
Facebook page, so be sure to check out the announcement, it could be
you!

As a reminder to those of you who have visited our blog before, and for
anyone who is new to the blog, our challenges are monthly, based on an
inspirational photo and a colour swatch. A new challenge is posted on
the third Wednesday of every month and you can use any medium to create
your projects; paints, inks, pencils, pens, etc., as long as you keep to
the colours from the colour swatch in your project.

We are offering a monthly prize of £15 to spend on Chocolate Baroque
stamps to one lucky winner, who will be selected by Random.org from all
of the entrants who have used Chocolate Baroque stamps that are
currently available on the website. We welcome entries incorporating any
other stamps, but they will not be eligible to win the prize. All
entrants will have a chance to be selected as one of our Top Three and
can then display our 'I made the Top Three at Chocolate Baroque' badge
on their blog.

Now onto this month's challenge, which has been inspired by a piece of original artwork created by Shirley:

The challenge will close at 12.00 p.m. on Tuesday 20th January 2015, and the winner will be announced on Wednesday 28th January 2015. Here are some inspirational projects from the Design Team for you:

Wednesday, 10 December 2014

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Chocolate Baroque challenge blog. As Christmas approaches, we would like to thank you for your continued support for our blog. For those of you who have entered into the challenge, Thank You so much for finding the time amongst your busy preparations.

This week we are taking a look at some of your entries into the current challenge, and as always, we are really impressed with the artwork that you continue to produce for the challenges. Our first entry is Janny, who has used some of our newest stamps to create an underwater scene on her card:

Our next entrant is Rachel, with her beautiful Christmas card, the background is really lovely:

Kristiina has created some beautiful ATCs combining music paper and floral stamps:

Finally Barbara has made a card using a white embossed butterfly, which is layered simply on a plain background, the butterfly is decoupaged and really stunning:

Thank you to everyone who has entered this month, and we hope to see lots more entries from you before the challenge deadline next week. There is still plenty of time to enter, and you can find the link in this post. Remember, you stand a chance of winning a £15 voucher, details of which can be found on the How it Works tab at the top of the page.

We have two free downloads from Lesley for you this week, they will be so useful in your crafting stash. Please do not pass them on to others, but send them back here to collect the freebies for themselves.

To obtain your free downloads, please click on the images below. Once you have enlarged the images on your screen, right click the images, choose the option 'Save As', and save the images to your computer. You can now print the images onto a variety of surfaces for your crafting projects.

The Design Team have been making some projects with the downloads for your inspiration. Here are a couple of projects from Florence, a lovely card showcasing the image beautifully against a white background:

Here is a lovely card from Shirley with thoughts of Valentine's Day ahead:

Finally a card from me, using some of the lovely Autumn themed stamps available on the website:

Thank you girls for your projects, we hope that they have inspired you to have a go at making something with them yourselves. Why not upload what you have made to our Facebook Page? We would really love to see your projects.

We will be back next week with a new challenge, if you have any questions and you can't find the answers on the blog, please send us a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section.

Our challenges are monthly, based on an inspirational photo and a colour swatch. A new challenge is launched on the third Wednesday of every month and you can use any medium to create your projects; paints, inks, pencils, pens, etc, as long as you keep to the colours from the colour swatch in your project. We offer a monthly prize of £15 and the winner is drawn by Random.org from those entries that have used Chocolate Baroque stamps currently available on the website. We welcome entries from anyone however, and all entries will be considered by the DT members for a slot in the Top Three each month.

This week, we have some more inspiration from the DT. Our first project is a fabulous butterfly tag from Debbie:

Our second project is a card, also using butterflies as the theme, from Miranda:

Miranda has very kindly written a tutorial for her project that you can use for your own creativity:

1. Mist your paper before applying inks.
2. Apply the inks with a brush.
3. Hold your paper vertically and mist with the water so that the inks will start to move and you can decide in which direction you want them to go.
4. Clean your craft sheet and put the paper on it.
5. Position the stencil on one of the top corners and pull out some of the colour with a kitchen towel. Repeat on the opposite bottom corner.
6. Dry with a heat tool.
7. Stamp the poppy border and butterflies with Memento Grape Jelly ink.
8. Colour the seed pods with three shades of green colour pencils and a white pencil for highlights. Use a purple pencil for shading.
9. Colour the butterflies with the colour challenge colours and use a white gelly pen for the white accents.
10. Take the white Pan Pastel and put some on the top of your tool, apply around the butterflies, and fade with a clean sponge tool.
11. Stamp the sentiment with Versafine onyx black ink.

Enjoy the creative process! Miranda.

Thank you so much Debbie and Miranda for your inspiration this week. We will be back next week with another post, and more projects for you. We look forward to seeing more of your entries, and hope that you can find time amongst your Christmas preparations to join in with our challenge.

You can add your entries to the Inlinkz link here. In the meantime, don't forget if you have any questions, and you cannot find the answers on the blog pages, please send us a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this blog post; you will see it after the comments section.

Wednesday, 26 November 2014

Hello everyone, welcome to our second week of Challenge Five on the Chocolate Baroque challenge Blog. This week, we are announcing the winners of Challenge Four.

The winner of our £15 prize to spend at Chocolate Baroque is Kate whose lovely Mackintosh inspired card was drawn by Random.org as the overall winner. Congratulations Kate, we hope that you will have fun spending your voucher.

You can also display our Winner's badge, details of how to obtain the badge can be found on the FAQ tab at the top of the page. Please email Lesley on lesley@chocolatebaroque.com so that she can organise your voucher.

Our Top Three has been chosen by the Design Team. As always, we had a really hard time, as the entries were just amazing. Our Top Three winners in no particular order are:

Congratulations Girls, you can display the Top Three badge on your blog. Details of how to obtain the badge may be found on the FAQ tab at the top of the page. Well done to everyone who entered, and we hope that you will enter our current challenge, the colours are gorgeous. You can find the details here.

We have some more Design Team inspiration for you this week. Our first card is from Shirley, a stunning Christmas creation:

The next card is from Asha, a light and airy floral card, suitable for so many occasions:

Finally another gorgeous Christmas card from Claire, lots of snowflakes and a beautiful bow:

Thank you girls for your inspiration, they are all so different. Hopefully they will give you some ideas and inspire you to enter the challenge.

We will be back next week with more projects from the Design Team, but until then, we look forward to seeing more of your crafty projects. If you have any questions and you cannot find the answers on the blog, please send us a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this blog post; you will see it after the comments section.

Wednesday, 19 November 2014

Hello everyone, welcome to a brand new challenge on the Chocolate Baroque challenge blog. Thank you for all of your entries into last month's challenge. We will be announcing the winner next week, both here and on our Facebook page, so be sure to check out the announcement, it could be you!

As a reminder to those of you who have visited our blog before, and for anyone who is new to the blog, our challenges are monthly, based on an inspirational photo and a colour swatch. A new challenge is posted on the third Wednesday of every month and you can use any medium to create your projects; paints, inks, pencils, pens, etc., as long as you keep to the colours from the colour swatch in your project.

We are offering a monthly prize of £15 to spend on Chocolate Baroque stamps to one lucky winner, who will be selected by Random.org from all of the entrants who have used Chocolate Baroque stamps that are currently available on the website. We welcome entries incorporating any other stamps, but they will not be eligible to win the prize. All entrants will have a chance to be selected as one of our Top Three and can then display our 'I made the Top Three at Chocolate Baroque' badge on their blog.

Now onto this month's challenge, which has been inspired by a piece of original artwork created by Shirley:

The challenge will close at 12.00 p.m. on Tuesday 16th December 2014, and the winner will be announced on Wednesday 24th December 2014. Here are some inspirational projects from our Design Team for you:

Wednesday, 12 November 2014

Hello everyone, and welcome to the final week of Challenge Four on the Chocolate Baroque challenge blog. Thank you so much for the amazing entries that you have been sending into the challenge so far, we love taking a look at what you have been creating. There is still plenty of time to enter the current challenge, and if you would like to add your project, you can find the link in this post.

This week, we are taking a look at some of the entries that we have received so far for our current challenge. The first card is this lovely sample from Janny. She has used a Poppy stamp from the Poppy Meadow set as her focal image, and the colouring is really bright and uplifting:

Next is an email entry from Janice, using a pretty butterfly. Her background is a great blend of the colours:

Penny has created a super steampunk tag, with a great textured background for her entry:

Finally, an unusual colour scheme for a Christmas card, but this steampunk tree looks great on Debbie's starry background:

Such a great variety for our selection this month, but all using the same colours in one way or another.

We will be back next week with a new challenge, and in the meantime hope to see lots more entries for the current challenge. Remember, you stand a chance of winning a £15 voucher, details of which can be found on our How it works tab at the top of the page. Don't forget if you have any questions, and you can't find the answers on the blog, please send us a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section.

Current Challenge

Welcome

A very warm welcome to the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. We love crafting and stamping in particular and we love to share and encourage you to have a go.

We hope that you will be inspired to get your stamps inked up, make some time to play and end up with a creation you are proud to share with us all.

Please take a look around - we have tabs at the top that give you lots of information about how our challenges work and if you have any questions at all, please use the Contact page to get in touch and one of the team will get back to you.